Thread: World's most Expensive Cities

Seoul Ranked 37th Most Expensive City in World

Tokyo and Osaka are the world's two most expensive cities in which to live, and Seoul ranks 37th, according to the Worldwide Cost of Living Index survey released by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The EUI releases the list twice a year and studies the cost of living in 131 cities in 97 countries. It looks at over 400 indicators to compare the prices of products and services. It gives New York City a benchmark value of 100 and rates other cities on the index relative to that.

Sydney was the third most expensive city and Melbourne ranked joint fourth with Oslo. The top 20 included 11 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, eight from Europe but none from the U.S.

The highest-ranked city in North America was Vancouver, at No. 21, while Los Angeles and New York City shared 27th place.
The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea - Seoul Ranked 37th Most Expensive City in World

Tokyo and Osaka are the world's two most expensive cities in which to live

As apposed to most expensive in which to die?

You have to register to see the full report. Can you access this link?

http://www.eiu.com/Handlers/Whitepap...ignid=Wcol2013

The findings of the latest Worldwide Cost of
Living Survey

Tokyo tops list once again
After currency swings pushed Zurich to the top of the ranking last year, Tokyo has resumed its place as the
world’s most expensive city. This is a familiar position for the Japanese capital, which has been the world’s
most expensive city for all but a handful of the last 20 years. In fact, since 1992 Tokyo has been the topranking
city in every year bar six. Only Zurich, Paris and Oslo were dubbed the world’s most expensive city
during this time.
This comes despite a fall in the relative cost of living in Tokyo (against the base city of New York) due
to Japanese deflation, a weaker yen and rising prices elsewhere in the world. In Switzerland, efforts to
weaken the franc meant that the relative fall in Zurich and Geneva was much stronger. In fact, relative
to New York, the two Swiss cities saw the steepest declines of all 131 cities surveyed. Zurich experienced
an index decline of 39 percentage points, falling from the world’s most expensive city 12 months ago to
its seventh most expensive now. A 33-percentage-point decline prompted Geneva to fall seven places to
tenth place.
Asian, Australian cities continue to move up cost of living scale
One of the features of the cost-of-living ranking over the last few years has been the rise of many Asian
cities offsetting traditionally more costly European locations. In particular, Australian cities have been
rising very quickly up the rankings as economic growth has supported inflation and currency swings to
make them more costly. This survey is no exception. Ten years ago there were no Australian cities amongthe 50 most expensive cities. Two years ago Australian cities began to be ranked among the ten most expensive. The current survey sees Australian cities reach the highest-ranked position yet, with Sydney rated the third most expensive city surveyed and Melbourne ranked in fifth place. Australian cities are joined by cities in New Zealand and the rising Asian hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong in a top 20 where Asian cities are dominant. Asian cities make up 11 of the world’s 20 most expensive compared with eight
from Europe. A decade ago this was six Asian vs ten European cities, with four cities from the USA. The current ranking still fails to include any cities from North America among the 20 most expensive, despite widespread decline in the cost of living relative to US cities.

The Big Apple gets a bigger price tag
A fall in the cost-of-living indices, with New York fixed as base of 100, is a common feature of the survey. Only 12 cities of the 131 surveyed saw a relative rise in the cost of living compared with New York, reflecting a stronger US dollar and rising costs in the Big Apple, especially in the clothing, tobacco and grocery categories. One hundred and twelve cities saw the cost of living relative to New York fall, prompting the financial centre to rise by 19 places to 27th in the ranking. As well as seeing the cost of living rise relative to foreign locations, New York has also seen the cost of living rising relative to locations in the United States, and now shares the position as the most expensive US city with Los Angeles. Despite the gains of the US dollar, it is the Canadian city of Vancouver that remains the most expensive location in North America. The British Columbian capital saw New York closing the gap, but remains 6% more expensive and rose by 15 places in the overall ranking to 21st most expensive city surveyed.

Caracas index is skewed by fixed exchange rates
Some observers may be surprised to see Caracas feature among the ten most expensive cities. Price volatility in the Venezuelan capital has certainly been strong—so strong, in fact, that official inflation reached almost 20%, while aggregate price movements in the survey were over 25% year on year. This,
however, has come against a backdrop of exchange rates relative to the US dollar having been fixed. The official bolívar to dollar rate has been unchanged at 4.29 in recent years, despite strong local inflation. In fact, using a parallel “unofficial” exchange rate for the bolívar of around 14:1 for the last year would make
Caracas the joint cheapest city in the ranking, alongside Mumbai and Karachi.

Cheapest cities reflect low costs in South Asia
The cheapest cities in the ranking have a familiar feel to them, both in terms of geography and consistency. While Asia is home to over half of the world’s 20 most expensive cities, the region is also home to six of the ten cheapest cities. Within Asia it is also possible to drill down to the geographic area offering the lowest prices. Five of the bottom ten (and six of the bottom eleven) cities hail from the Indian subcontinent (defined as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka). Mumbai and Karachi are the joint cheapest locations in the survey, with indices of just 44 when compared with New York. Although India is something of a tiger economy tipped for future growth, much of this is driven by
its large population and the untapped potential within the economy. Income inequality means that household spending levels are low on a per capita basis, which has kept prices down, especially by Western standards. Outside India bargain hunters may be put off by the security risk in many of the countries in
which the world’s cheapest cities are found. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Algeria and Iran all feature in the bottom ten, but have had well documented security issues or domestic unrest. Bucharest (Romania), Panama City (Panama) and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) could offer a cheap cost of living in a more stable environment.

(I tried copying and pasting the report here)

The ten most expensive
Country City WCOL index (New York=100) Rank Rank movement
Japan Tokyo 152 1 1
Japan Osaka 146 2 1
Australia Sydney 137 3 4
Norway Oslo 136 4= 1
Australia Melbourne 136 4= 4
Singapore Singapore 135 6 3
Switzerland Zurich 131 7 -6
France Paris 128 8 -2
Venezuela Caracas 126 9 25
Switzerland Geneva 124 10 -7


The ten least expensive
Country City WCOL index (New York=100) Rank Rank move
Iran Tehran 58 122 7
Saudi Arabia Jeddah 57 123 4
Panama Panama City 56 124 1
Sri Lanka Colombo 55 125 -11
Romania Bucharest 54 126= -12
Algeria Algiers 54 126= -2
Nepal Kathmandu 50 128 -3
India New Delhi 48 129 -1
India Mumbai 44 130= 0
Pakistan Karachi 44 130= 1

Background: about the survey
The Worldwide Cost of Living is a bi-annual (twice yearly) Economist Intelligence Unit survey that compares more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services. These include food, drink, clothing, household supplies and personal care items, home rents, transport, utility bills, private schools, domestic help and recreational costs.

The survey itself is a purpose-built internet tool designed to help human resources and finance managers calculate cost-of-living allowances and build compensation packages for expatriates and
business travellers. The survey incorporates easy-to-understand comparative cost-of-living indices between cities. The survey allows for city-to-city comparisons, but for the purpose of this report all cities are compared to a base city of New York, which has an index set at 100. The survey has been
carried out for more than 30 years.

Methodology
More than 50,000 individual prices are collected in each survey, conducted each March and September and published in June and December. EIU researchers survey a range of stores: supermarkets, midpriced stores and higher-priced speciality outlets. Prices reflect costs for more than 160 items ineach city. These are not recommended retail prices or manufacturers’ costs; they are what the paying customer is charged. Prices gathered are then converted into a central currency (US dollars) using a prevailing exchange
rate and weighted in order to achieve comparative indices. The cost-of-living index uses an identical set of weights that is internationally based and not geared toward the spending pattern of any specific nationality. Items are individually weighted across a range of categories and a comparative index is
produced using the relative difference by weighted item.

I live in number 10 (no not Downing Street) and it is expensive. But as in all cities you can find cheap, good places to eat and drink and be merry. And in the Summer, the lake is on my doorstep, in Winter the ski ing is about an hour away. And the air is clean.

Rents are atrocious. Ciggies are cheaper than England.

I live in Tokyo , and find it much cheaper than Australia. Everyday goods , eating and drinking out, monthly bills are about half of the price compared to oz . Things have actually gotten cheaper and cheaper ever since I first set foot here in 1992. Where as every time I go back to oz, everything has gone up in price. The only thing that hasn't gone down in price in Tokyo is rent - and wages have dropped.

Bucharest here I come

Originally Posted by MissTraveller

The ten most expensive
Country City WCOL index (New York=100) Rank Rank movement
Japan Tokyo 152 1 1
Japan Osaka 146 2 1
Australia Sydney 137 3 4
Norway Oslo 136 4= 1
Australia Melbourne 136 4= 4
Singapore Singapore 135 6 3
Switzerland Zurich 131 7 -6
France Paris 128 8 -2
Venezuela Caracas 126 9 25
Switzerland Geneva 124 10 -7


The ten least expensive
Country City WCOL index (New York=100) Rank Rank move
Iran Tehran 58 122 7
Saudi Arabia Jeddah 57 123 4
Panama Panama City 56 124 1
Sri Lanka Colombo 55 125 -11
Romania Bucharest 54 126= -12
Algeria Algiers 54 126= -2
Nepal Kathmandu 50 128 -3
India New Delhi 48 129 -1
India Mumbai 44 130= 0
Pakistan Karachi 44 130= 1

Ok, but be advised against taking residence in Karachi or Mumbai just because they're inexpensive. Bucharest is cool, though.